They Claimed He Was My Brother
by Kay the Cricketed
Summary: (SLASH... Warning: INCEST) It's not beautiful and not ugly. Not right or wrong. Neither tragedy or horror story. And there are no happy endings.


_ They Claimed He Was My Brother _

By Kay 

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, unfortunately. Wagh. 

Author's Notes: INCEST-- this will be your final warning. Figure out who is speaking if you can. ^^ It's fairly simple, I think... 

And dark. Definitely. This is dark. I'm not sure what sort of mood I was in, but... I blame "Angel Sanctuary", damn it. 

UPDATE! 7/30/03 -- REVISED AND EDITED. ^__^ Mostly spelling and grammar. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

_They claimed he was my brother  
Of the scarlet world I knew of blood  
Always disbelieved the truth  
No one so pure would touch my skin_

    It's in the darkest, deepest nights that I miss my brother. 

    Being nothing so hard to understand, of course, when you see the blankness of the walls surrounding me that I do. There is no light in this cavern-like prison, with the exception of the lighter shades of gray tinting the edges of the swallowing, eager shadows that creep up the stone granite structures. There's supposed to a window in the upper corner to the right, but it's too small- the bars bring even more unwanted figures in the night. 

    And it makes the cell I live in so very cold in the twilight hours- when chilled temperatures lower even further, bringing an icy texture to my skin. Like Dracula, a vampire of slick, dead snowed body, who never saw the light of day. Shadows love to suck the colour from you, deep within this purgatory. 

    Here in purgatory- as I've named it- I miss my brother. 

    Stuck in the tiny four-walled room, with only a door to reclaim the right to one of the walls, being the only difference in this place- it's here I stare, unprovided with things to occupy my mind. Therefore, when all your thoughts are wasted through my millions, it comes to me then, the memories of my brother. 

    My _brother_ whom I can't even recall with clear conscious. 

    Brother is such a strange, horrifying term to me- although I bet most people have a normal image of it. Something that means love and attention, protection, devotion… 

    I think of my brother. And the shadowed demons scream wickedly and tear at my mind's images. 

    Despite the pain of recollection... I do miss him. Miss the ways he was with me, the ways the world fit together in the moments I spent with him. There's a thousand and one ways I could recall his perfection without being disrespectful to all the gods of the universe, and there's not a lonely, cold-stricken night that goes by when I can't remember. 

    My brother, the dreamy flashes of thick, golden blond hair trickling through my fingers. Deep, questioning blue eyes that looked so very innocent in their own right, yet with an older, understanding glow of ancient knowledge. Quick, wide little smiles, that ranged from bittersweet to wonderfully gentle. 

    The white men with the clipboards say I shouldn't think about him. 

    _'It is wrong to still care about him.' _

    Is it so wrong, caught up in this heavenly torture device of thick, echoing stone walls that enclose me in their tight embrace, to want to remember someone so safe? Embraces that weren't suffocating, but merely a safe haven to call my sanctuary? 

    Of course, it was never right to love him. 

    The men... they don't understand the darkness. How he drove it away. 

    Is it so wrong, I ask? Is it so wrong? 

_

They claimed he was my brother  
Who would forbid the storms from wrecking me  
I never thought to thank him  
From saving me from the wanted pain of rapture

_

    Sometimes I work up the courage and will to ask the men who visit me, with their loud footsteps and thick hands that scrawl amazingly light across their papers, a few important questions. Not always do they answer, but on the occasions they want to- I get a few pieces of precious, vital information I deserve to know. 

    I ask them what the day is, when my birthday will next be. None of them remember I ever had one to begin with, so I usually get blank stares behind rounded golden glasses. That's alright. More importantly, they tell me my age. 

    Last week, I was eighteen. I am an adult. 

    It doesn't feel like that's the case, not even when I try very hard to imagine how my face must look to everyone else who visits me. Not that there are many- only the doctor men, the ones who take notes and ask me questions, and then patronize me with their false hopes and reassurances. The ones who claim my "brother" is a demon, though not in those exact words. 

    Eighteen is an age I faintly push together in a jigsaw puzzle of normality, when most others should be celebrating, cheering on their newfound independence they actually really don't want inside. Funny how I can't even recall turning eighteen, and even worse how I don't recall still ever turning eighteen. 

    In my mind, the wheels and gears that creaked in my brain stopped abruptly, frozen and clogged, the moment sunlight left my vision. The second I last saw my brother's image. 

    In that time, no other hours have passed and age seems to have fleetingly moved on despite my wishes. Now, I wonder what I would see if I dared to ask for a mirror? If I dared to ask for an explanation of what I truly looked like now? 

    Somewhere in the very farthest portion of my delayed mind, voices whisper about past predictions of what would happen at this time. I was to look like I always had, carrying the same characteristics of my brother when he would someday grow to be older- or was that sooner? Either way, we would be mirror images someday, when age limits thinned to unnecessary realizations. All angelic statures, according to the world. 

    I laugh at that when I hear it. When people say we were like two angels. 

    Just because a child has the image- the traditional holy resemblance of flaxen, lovely blonde curls and slender features; the wide, endless abyss of ocean in their gazes- did not mean they would be an angel. Even those who seem to be an angelic figure can carry a hateful, blood-spread sword behind their illusion of wings. 

    I am not an angel. My brother was not an angel. 

    And as it was foretold by him, trepidation always going to his mind first in our relationship, we both ended up where we belonged. I lay in purgatory of this place, this stained, untouched hell. 

    My brother lies in a grave six foot under, I'm told. Though I never believe them. 

_ They claimed he was my brother  
A child known for his right to breathe the heavens  
These nights I would watch him sleep  
Gently with eyelashes shut upon his face_

    I have no clue when it all went wrong, at the time our world was struck upside down by law of realistic gravity. Up until then, we'd been daydreaming and creating that into the world around us. 

    My brother, years separating us to either side, and I. We had something few other siblings could claim to own. He was something few other people were privileged to see- a person touched by the grace of the heavens, unmatched in the passion of the below fires. Together we were everything a masterpiece could claim to know, but apart we were uneven, unparalleled. 

    We were created, in my mind, to care and protect for each other. It was only right. When I cried, he came to my call of anguish and would soothe out the hurts of my soul, having no idea he did so. And when he was in similar pain, how many nights did I end up carefully lowering him into peaceful slumber with my own soft words? 

    Unrepeatable, no matter who tried to do so. Our traitorous parents, perhaps, although they must have done so for different reasons than what was occurring. 

    I never wanted to be without him- I needed him, he needed me, we were the lights that could shine only when lit by each other, a thousand fireflies in the night sky never comparing to his brilliance when he smiled. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when I was stifled by the heavy blankets engulfing me with suffocating vengeance, I would have to rise to him. 

    Those nights were when the moonlight caressed the floorboards of his room, and I would have to untangle myself to go to his bedside to find peace. He never woke, not usually, and it would take hours of my sitting beside him, gazing intensely at the way he slept, his face, before I felt safe enough to lower my heart rate. Life was a horribly heavy thing on my shoulders, though no one really knew it. 

    But... I could stare at his face, the pale features, the lashes gently laid out on his cheekbones, the way his soft hair fell lazily over his forehead- and for once I would feel a moment of peace. 

    He executed my demons, awake or asleep, and I tried to do the same for his tortured soul. And indeed, he did have one. My brother was not known for being completely balanced, not later in his life when he was common to mood swings. The others, our friends, used to worry. Once, someone came to me in concern that it was unnatural, but I knew the truth. 

    My brother was unbalanced, but only because I denied him the right not to be lopsided. 

    The doctors tell me I'm flawed, like _he_ was. That I caused him to be the one unbalanced. 

    No, no, I tell them, and do so earnestly. I tell them and they believe I'm lying. I still can't stop the way the words are forced pleadingly from my lips, desperate- 

    _'No, no, he kissed me first.' _

_ They claimed he was my brother  
Dreaming boy who caught shards of glass without bleeding  
Days past, I never tried to work the wounds  
Instead seeing him as an angel_

    It's not really so hard to believe when you think hard about who we were. My brother and I, the "angels," the "demons," the "opposites." We were the polar sides of the magnets of Earth, fated to join in the end of things, unable to resist the attraction. Or… is that how he thought of it? 

    Somehow, no matter, he was the one that kissed me first. 

    Not that I hadn't encouraged him in the first place. Not once did I ever tell him I didn't love him- I always used that term, and how many times did his eyes flicker in nervous wonder at my tone? Was it always so transparent, so easily seen through to the real meaning? I never gave him any indication it wasn't, but not once did I ease the questions of his mind. 

    Strange to think, I never scared him away with my subtle meanings. 

    It's stranger to think he never scared _me_ away, when the days of sunsets and his eyes would call to me, and I'd just _know_ somewhere inside... having that talent, I know what people can be like. Yet at the same time I'm more innocent than my brother in that aspect- he's better at seeing the world than I am. One of us sees the good in it, the other sees the pain. 

    I used that to my advantage, and I would heal the wounds I saw. Others I let bleed in raw agony, knowing and hating myself for it, but still understanding that if I closed them, I'd never have a chance to call him mine. And vice versa. 

    Doesn't it just sound like a conspiracy? Like a demented, twisted little play of _Hamlet_ or damnation put on stage? You can't imagine the thrill of playing a part like mine, the one in love with the "forbidden," according to society. 

    And it was forbidden- the doctors tell me every day. I'm not to love him still, he's out of my reach, it was _my_ fault he's out of my reach- 

    I don't remember that being true. Maybe it is. 

    It's understandable, a little at least, though, right? Just a bit? Who hadn't fallen in love with my brother? Who didn't want to see him happy and enjoy life, even though he was oblivious to it all? No one, that's who. What would make the rest of the world believe I was immune to it, too? I didn't have the cure, the precious vaccine to stop wanting to be the one to cause his smiles! I wasn't the one to resist it! 

    They blamed me, condemned me, even my mother. Not that this was surprising. 

    _'How can you believe I wouldn't fall in love with an angel? If he was an angel. If he was not.' _

    Somehow, I knew he wasn't truly the angel he seemed to be. Accordingly, that doesn't stop the sudden instinctive knowledge that deep inside, perhaps he truly was. You couldn't look at him for the first time, sitting in the sunlight, or even basking in the darkness, without thinking he was an angel of some form- whether it be fallen, holy, or warrior. 

    Because he was an angel, I thought he was indestructible. I was wrong and right. He wasn't destroyed by anything that hurt him- 

    Through that, it was only me that knew his weaknesses and exploited them. 

_ They claimed he was my brother  
In truth, the most righteous warrior of love  
His protections never reached me  
And so I destroyed his shields with anger_

    We were the strangest of brothers, then, if we're really blood relatives like the doctor-men say. The oddest relationship, based on the same instinctive love and possessiveness. 

    It's no secret, and definitely not weird to anyone else until they knew the truth, that we were possessive of each other. It was easy to be jealous when attentions were turned elsewhere, and I can't count how many times that ended up with broken, hurt words. We always made sure we knew the truth, though- about each other. 

    It wasn't... lust, doctors. I know you don't understand that. 

    It was that I needed him- desired him- in a more emotional status. We were the shields from the heavy, thick storms clouds that would destroy us, always protecting each other from the lightening bolts. Not always succeeding. But there was the need, the devotion to each other, to see each other safe- to know love- 

    Here was our falter, our mistake, according to my friends. Caught up in that, they claim we accidentally mistook sibling caring for true love. _Bastards._

    What I felt- and still feel deep inside of me, boiling and gently soothing at the same moment- is hardly sibling love twisted into something farther. Yes, there's that, he is my brother, if the stories are true, if we weren't lied to. Yet you can't mistake that for the same overpowering, incredible furnace that heats me from this cold, dark, horrible, scary and uneven room of justice. 

    I loved him in a concerning way, always worried for his safety and happiness. I loved him in an adoring way, admiring his many accomplishments even though he denied them. I loved him in his trusting way, and at the same time for his bitter understanding of the world. Even more so, I loved him for being the one to love _me_, for only who I could be, not only who I was. 

    Everyone who cared for me only did so because of that. Who I could be- the future- belonged only to my brother. Only he could still be devoted to me when he knew that. 

    My brother could still love me when I let down the rigid mask of smiling after the sunset. There's something unconditional in that, and it's not a sensation you can merely pick up off the street corners in the gutters. Many people have to reach for that. 

    He gave it to my hands before they even lifted to him. 

    We weren't brothers in the natural sense. We were the same person, the same entity, split in half despite our differences that worked so much better together. Indefinitely, we could blend into our personalities in a fanatical ritual of bleeding, love, and fierce protection from those that could deny or harm us. 

    He kissed me first, you know. I kissed him second. 

    I loved him for that gift- his lips, his slow smile afterwards, the way his touch would do that to me- wrong, horrible, achingly cruel, that it should be an angel, my brother, to awaken me into life. 

    No, doctors, can you truly say it's my fault now? Can you really feel right about locking me up, telling me I'm sick in the head? When you know it's true, but only because you put me in this place to rot? 

    I miss my brother the most on these nights. I always miss him. 

_ They claimed he was my brother  
Dancing deathly figure laying in my arms that night  
Lips of solid rubies shut forever  
Timing the oncoming breaths within my chest_

    The memories burn my head like poison, vicious and loathing against the delicate tissue, but I can only cry and sob and wail at them. Rocking on the cold, hard floor that solidly refuses to move with me- it's here I recall and can't help but hitch my breath at the images. The tears that burn almost as badly as memories, searing my skin. 

    Supposedly, I'm deserving of this place and treatment. I'm sick. 

    At these nights, I'm almost afraid they're right- no one else can see the same shadows, overwhelming dancing of shrieking demons in my head, and enticing figures of eternal rest. Who couldn't be sick and still see their world crumble at the seams? Or have I spent too many years in this hell-hole to really know? 

    I've changed. I'm no longer who I was- and even more so, _not_ an angel. At least my brother escaped this taint, although he used to say he was tainted before anyway. 

    They tell me that my brother, my _brother_, is no longer with us. He's passed on. Moved away. I can't see him anymore. He's dead. Dead and gone, shoved unceremonially in some god-forbidden grave of wet dirt and mud from earth; decomposing in the ground, a mass of bone and muscle and blood covered up. 

    An angel they entombed. 

    I laughed, bitter and mocking, hysterically rocking back and forth while the tears stream down in harsh, rapturous streams. How can my brother, my protector, my charge to protect- how can he be gone? Or is it just some lie they told me, something to make sure that I never see him again? 

    Memories plague me, like evil hissing snakes that intertwine in my head, telling me of things like pale skin, dead empty eyes that stare directly into mine- the same colour dulled. Limp hair, shredded with specks of thick, hot blood that spills onto my fingers, and a body that won't stop being warm, even after the cold envelopes my _own_- 

    Or are these memories the same as the dancing demons and shadows? Only an illusion my mind created to give me peace? 

    I don't know. I don't know anything, not anymore. 

    All I can feel is my longing to know he's safe, to be safe _with_ him, in a sunlit world where no one's problems except our own are anywhere. Where we're in our own sanctuary and prison of our own making, a luxury life denied us, our peace! No one to believe our love or let it be, who turned on us in betrayal of the worst sort when discovering our secret. 

    They were the ones who are mad! They were the ones who were cruel to us, shocked and horrified at what we had. I hate them. I hate them for being wrong, misunderstanding... 

    I hate them more for maybe, just maybe, being completely right. 

    I rock, and cry unwillingly into my arms that are still dirty and bruised from pounding on the walls for something I can't find. And I feel my heart thudding loudly in my chest, beating against my delicate ribs and frame, determined to break through the skin and out of my body. Still, I can beg of it, be still- but it wouldn't. 

    It's incomplete without the heartbeat that once sang with mine. 

    I need my brother. I need my... _my_ brother. 

_

They claimed he was my brother  
And I killed my brother best  
I only wait another night to scream that  
I only loved him like the rest

_

    It's in the darkest, deepest nights I miss my brother. 

    I miss his warmth, the smiles and laughter that might someday accompany him, and the other moments when they wouldn't. When he'd be brooding, reluctant to do anything right, glaring and irritated. So much, half the angel, and half the other. Like we were to each other. Before the endless pain these years were carrying on me, breaking upon me. 

    If he's not dead, how could he leave me here alone? If he's really dead, how am I still the one living without my other half? 

    I loved my brother. I only loved him like everyone else- was that so wrong? 

    Apparently. Yet I... I... 

    I miss him. I miss him. I _love_ him. 

    Matt... I still love you, 'niichan. 

_

They claimed he was my brother  
I claimed he was my death

_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

END: ... wow. Um. Eheh. Dude. 

... ^^;; Please don't steal the poem, as it's my own. And eeee, sorry if it was dark and made little sense! I hope you figured out who was speaking earlier on, if not it doesn't matter. I also did this as an Osamu/Ken fic for a dear, dear friend of mine, but later I warped it into this, too, to have fun with it. ^^;; Still don't know which version I prefer. If anyone wants me to add that one (which is the same almost, only Osamu/Ken) as a second chapter, just ask. 

... oh. And incest? I have very little problem with it-- if you didn't approve, why did you read this fic, hm? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 


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